Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Wednesday Music Flashback: Following The Light Across My Room

2 comments:

Dave J
said...

Oh, good ole Paul Simon--thanks! I was just thinking about _Graceland_ (this song comes on the album after that one, right?), and I was thinking about how pleasurable an album it is and how accessible, even on an initial listen, the songs can be. This made me think about accessibility, or what we might call "ease" much more loosely, with pop culture, and the extent to which that is read oftentimes as a negative (like "bubblegum," no?). I'm wondering when that starts--if it's a 20th century avant-garde thing or if it is much older than that. Anyway, thanks for the listen!

Dave,Yeah, "Obvious Child" is from his GRACELAND follow-up, THE RHYTHM OF THE SAINTS. I saw him on that tour (although not this NYC concert), and he was really great.

Those questions you raise about pop and ease are really fascinating. I don't know that it starts in the 20th Century-- I'm not really sure what it's starting point is, actually-- but it certainly intensifies in 20th century debates about art and authenticity, the avant-garde, high and low, etc. (Adorno maybe being the classic example of it).